Roy Halladay gave up a homer to Alex Rodriguez in his first spring start, which is fine because that’s Alex Rodriguez, the active major league leader in home runs.

In his second spring start, Halladay gave up two homers to Eric Patterson, a journeyman most famous for being the younger brother of a former top prospect turned journeyman.

In his third spring start, Halladay gave up two more homers, these to a Twins team that wasn’t hitting anyone this spring. Granted, they did come off the bats of better hitters than Patterson: Josh Willingham hit the first, with prospect Chris Parmelee delivering the second.

Add it up and Halladay has allowed five homers in 7 2/3 innings this spring. That’s one more than he allowed in his final 19 starts of 2011 (and, by the way, nine of those 19 starts lasted longer than 7 2/3 innings).

So, what’s wrong with Roy Halladay? Probably nothing. Still, this isn’t like him in the least. Not typically a slow starter, he made it through last spring allowing a total of one run in 21 2/3 innings. He did give up five homers in his final spring with the Jays in 2009, but that was spread over 33 innings and he ended up with a 3.27 ERA.

The current reports suggest Halladay’s velocity is just fine. His location obviously isn’t, but he’ll have a couple of more starts with which to sort that out. If he’s still getting lit up at the end of the spring, there will be some reason for concern. Right now, there isn’t.

The Cardinals have always emphasized building from within. In the 2016-17 offseason, however, they may end up being one of the bigger free agent buyers. At least according to some informed speculation.

The Cardinals are already losing their first round pick due to the Fowler signing, so any other top free agent won’t cost them more than the money he’s owed. And as far as money goes, the Cardinals have a great deal of it, despite being a small market team. They have a billion dollar TV deal coming online and Matt Holliday and Jaime Garcia are off the payroll now. Spending big on a free agent or three would not cripple them or anything.

Encarnacion or Trumbo would be first baseman, which wold fly in the face of the Cards’ move of Matt Carpenter to first base (and, at least as far as Encarnacion goes, would fly in the face of good defense). Getting either of them would push Carpenter back to second, displacing Kolten Wong, or over to third, displacing Jhonny Peralta. If you’re going to do that, I’d say that Turner would make more sense, but what do I know?

Either way, the Cardinals may be entering a pretty interesting phase of their offseason now. And an unfamiliar one as, quite possibly, the top free agent buyer on the market.

There is literally nothing you could tell me that the incoming administration is considering which would shock me anymore. As such, I saw this story when I woke up this morning, blinked once, took a sip of coffee, closed the browser window and just went on with my morning, as desensitized as a wisdom tooth about to be yanked.

Rob Bradford of WEEI.com reports that Former Red Sox, Mets and Rangers manager Bobby Valentine is on a short-list of candidates for the job of United States Ambassador to Japan:

The 66-year-old, who currently serves as Sacred Heart University’s athletics director, has engaged in preliminary discussions with President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team regarding the position.

Valentine managed the Chiba Lotte Marines of Japan’s Pacific League for six seasons, leading the team to a championship in 2005. He also knows the current prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, as both went to USC. Assuming championship teams meet the country’s leader in Japan like they do in the United States, Valentine has at least twice the amount of experience with top political leaders than does, say, Ned Yost, so that’s something.

The former manager, more importantly, is friends with Donald Trump’s brother, with the two of them going way back. Which, given how this transition is going, seems like a far more important set of qualifications than anything else on this list.